I think this (below) a very healthy direction for net music and DJ culture
to be moving towards. I've never been a fan of the DJ-as-rock-star
direction that the more popular ones tend to go towards.
Once your "underground sound system" gets mentioned on wired.com however,
I'm not sure how "underground" it will ever be again :)
The double-edged sword of popularity and the press...
Gen
* * * * * *
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39422,00.html
DJs Living (Room) Large on Web
by Leander Kahney
3:00 a.m. Oct. 14, 2000 PDT
A German couple living in Munich regularly attract some of Europe's top
electronica DJs to play in their living room.
Every Sunday night a popular European DJ troops over to a rather ordinary
apartment in the center of Munich to spin disks for Claus and Dani Wahlers,
a pair of programmers and Web designers.
Unlike in the United States, electronica DJs are Europe's new pop stars,
attracting huge crowds to clubs and regularly topping the charts.
So why would a popular DJ devote an evening to play a small, crowded living
room full of overflowing ashtrays and empty beer bottles?
According to Claus, it's partly art for art's sake -- the perfect antidote
to Europe's over-hyped, over-commercialized dance music industry, which is
far more mainstream than America's fledging rave scene.
Instead of playing huge, overcrowded, smoke- and sweat-filled clubs, the
DJs can play an intimate set for Claus and Dani and a few of their friends.
"It's a relaxed Sunday evening chillout," said Claus. "They can hang around
with nice people, play their latest vinyl and have some fun."
Plus, the three- and four-hour sets are streamed live over the Internet,
attracting a sizeable audience that stretches across the globe from
Yugoslavia to Brazil.
Since its launch in April, Roemerstr31 has hosted DJ Hell, Miss Kittin, DJ
Splank from Zombie Nation, Monika Kruse and Tokyo's DJ Steril.
While not exactly household names in the United States, these DJs are well
known in Europe and are starting to gain a following in the States. DJ
Hell, Miss Kittin and Splank are all currently touring in the United
States, and Zombie Nation's recently-released "Kernkraft 400" broke into
the Billboard charts.
Advertised purely by word-of-mouth, Roemerstr31, named after the couple's
street and apartment number, is starting to attract Net audiences of up to
1,000 techno aficionados, who tune in from around the globe.
The sessions are broadcast with Shoutcast in basic- and high-quality MP3
streams (32kbps and 128kbps, respectively).
To improve performance, the streams are relayed by servers in Brazil and
Scandinavia.
The Roemerstr31 site includes live chat and a webcam so that listeners can
watch and communicate to the DJs during the set.
"The DJs play because they want to and not because they are 'booked',"
Claus said. "What we do is strictly non-commercial. We don't earn any money
with the site and the broadcasts."
"The music is great," said DJ Hell in an email. "Some hot dogs are playing
there already."
The hosts also serve free sushi and apfelsaftschorle, an apple juice
spritzer, he said.
Claus, 32, calls Roemerstr31 an experiment in "Wohnzimmer live streaming"
(Wohnzimmer means "living room" in German).
"It is very important for us to broadcast a living room feeling to the
listeners at home," he said. "Roemerstr31.com sessions are special and
exclusive events of their own kind that have already reached cult status."
"The atmosphere of the live living-room stream contrasts to the usual club
video streams or the mostly naive live broadcast muddle of the major music
stations," said Chris Mayr, who runs Technoforum.de, a German electronic
music site.
Claus and Dani, 21, are both involved in Munich's underground electronic
music scene and the founders of the "Cocksonweed" sound system, which
frequently organizes illegal techno parties in squats, abandoned factories
and bunkers, Claus said.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Oct 14 2000 - 17:22:39 MET DST